


In Which, Well, Look, It Sort of Happened on Its Own

by jadedragonfly



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), hastur mention, interpret their relationship as you will, platonic? romantic? either way:, slight angst, we stan these beings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 09:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19374160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadedragonfly/pseuds/jadedragonfly
Summary: Aziraphale thinks Crowley is an angel(?).This is, admittedly, Crowley's fault.It's fine.He's fine.They're fine.





	In Which, Well, Look, It Sort of Happened on Its Own

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here we are. I don't know what I'm doing.  
> I used some creative liberty with their first conversation and stuff, like not just canon divergence, but actually ignoring how hard it would be for this to have happened? Anyway

He stared in the mirror, at himself, the right bastard.

  
It'd been a while since he really saw himself.

  
This wasn't it.

  
Sunglasses, aching wings from being tucked away so long, constant fear that he would slip.

  
Crowley's gaze was torn away at the sound of the person who he was doing all this for coming in downstairs. "Az?" he called out, shoulders relaxing, pushing his shades up his nose.  
The front door clanged shut and what sounded like several bags being set down almost covered the response of "Just one moment, my dear!" sent the way of the stairs, which Crowley now hurried down.

  
Aziraphale had never really used the room above his little store, but Crowley had added certain decorations, furniture, and infinitely wary houseplants to homey up the place. Really, he just wanted somewhere to sleep where he could still be near his angel during the days and nights Aziraphale focused on book repairing and sorting and eventually reading, not pausing any of it for hardly anything. Judging by the amount of new (well, ancient, really, but ones the angel had just picked up) books now sitting on the shop counter, one of these periods was about to take precedent.

  
"There was this _marvelous_ little store in Bergamo, something of an antique shop but they had quite the collection, and I couldn't help but pick up a few--" Aziraphale rambled, gesturing to the bags. "Oh, but forgive me, my angel, I assume everything was all right while I was away?"

  
Crowley smiled. "Right as rain, only had to scare off a couple customers."

  
At this point, you may be slightly curious. Why was Aziraphale calling Crowley "angel," you might ask? Well, one simple answer is that it's a loving name between two beings who are very much in love. And Crowley will tell you that he calls Az "angel" right back.

  
Another simple answer, though one that's not quite as easy to think about, is that Aziraphale sort of-- doesn't-- know-- aboutthewholedemonthing.

  
Look.

  
Crowley can explain.

  
Well.

  
Er.

  
You see, the thing is, about six millennia ago, Crowley wanted to approach an angel. He was bored. He'd made his trouble, now where was the real fun?  
(To be honest, what would probably count to people such as Crowley as "the real fun" would not be invented for many, many, _many_ years, namely driving ninety miles an hour in a Bentley listening to Beethoven's _We Will Rock You_.)

  
Anyway, bored. He wanted someone to talk to. So in order to not scare the angel off, he left his snake form, carefully folded back his wings, let his hair fall over his face a bit, and casually approached.

  
And they didn't really look at each other, but made small talk about flaming swords, and when the angel said something along the lines of "That was the best course, wasn't it? I have a hard time sometimes. I'm sure you always manage to do the right thing," he rather went along with it("I'm not sure it's actually possible for us angels to do evil"). This was fun.

  
And then he just kind of...kept forgetting to bring up the whole not-actually-being-an-angel thing, and _then_ he realized, after a few thousand years, that it was a sort of subconsciously purposeful forgetting, really, because he didn't want to lose Aziraphale.

  
He really, really didn't.

  
And telling him the truth would surely lead to that.

  
So he kept the sunglasses on, the wings hidden, the tendency to turn into a snake when startled away from any potentially startling events. He kept his mouth shut about any topic really appertaining to what he did or was, and somehow, (ironically) by some miracle, he was never found out.

  
The...well, _downstairs_ didn't know what he was playing. _Upstairs_ hadn't been bothered to say anything at all, and maybe they didn't know either. Aziraphale certainly didn't, and Crowley had to keep it that way. He didn't want to be alone.

  
Which was awfully selfish, but then again, he was a demon. Sort of funny, really, how all the hiding and the lying (not directly lying, really, it never actually came up too much in conversation, but still) about what he was could be considered a byproduct of, well, what he was.

  
Crowley didn't laugh about it, is all.

  
Aziraphale nudged him on the way to the back room with the newly acquired books. "You look quite lost in thought. What's on your mind?"

  
"Nothing," Crowley said. "Nothing at all."

  
***

  
There were times when he almost slipped up, of course. When he got emotional, he tended to hiss his s's. People would see him on the sidewalk and cross to the other side of the street without really knowing why. Sunglasses hadn't even been invented until the 12th century (coincidentally around the time he first cut his hair). And Hastur had an unfortunate tendency to pop in every half century or so, just to make sure evil was chugging along like it was supposed to, which led to many hurried lockings of doors and distractingly thick tomes just begging to be read appearing wherever Aziraphale was at the moment.

  
The day Aziraphale found out was the very same day he had come home from the Italy trip, the same day Crowley had been staring at the mirror and contemplating the meaning of lies, the same day an African violet with disappointingly browning leaves had been... _relocated_ from Crowley's flat(this wasn't actually related to the topic at hand, but the other plants certainly thought it was worth note. Though don't tell them, but it really just ended up in the bookshop windowsill).

  
They were taking a walk that evening, you see, and as they passed a church with some lovely irises blooming to the right of it, Aziraphale noticed a sign welcoming donations for the homeless being sheltered there at night, and looked around for a second before a cardboard box of warm clothing and canned goods casually appeared in his arms. Crowley, whose elbow had been linked with his, found himself dragged along as the angel turned left towards the doors.

  
"Oh, love, I can't go in there," he said hurriedly, before realizing with dread he might just have to actually have a reason for that.

  
Aziraphale probably would have settled for an "I'll just stay out here," but this wasn't that. "Can't? Why ever not?"

  
"I..." Crowley started to say, not particularly having the end of that sentence in mind yet, but Aziraphale seemed to take in whatever expression was on his face at the moment, and placed the box carefully by the entrance before leading them along the path home.

  
"Now," he said, once they had settled in on the falling-apart couch in the back of the shop and some tea had been conjured (Crowley then added some whiskey to his, don't tell), "tell me what's going on." Aziraphale was searching his face a bit worriedly, looking for the answers that Crowley had hidden for millenia.

  
"What do you mean?" Crowley slurped his drink frantically.

  
"It's not just what happened on the walk. My dear, you've been hiding something for a very long time now."

  
Crowley didn't know what to say. So he said nothing.

  
"Forgive me if I am intruding, but may I take a guess? I think this has gone on for a bit too long, don't you?"

  
A nod.

  
"You're not an angel, are you," Azzy said softly, and it was the gentleness in his voice that made Crowley want to cry.

  
"Quite the opposite, I'm afraid," and he winced at the crack in his voice, at the mumble of his own words, at the part of him that kept him too scared to look up and see what was on his angel's face.

  
"Well," Aziraphale said finally. "I'm glad you told me, of a sort."

  
His voice came back a tad, just enough to respond, "You sound like you knew. Why didn't you ever say anything? Why didn't you...leave?"

  
"For you to have kept such a secret? You must have had your reasons," Aziraphale said quietly.

  
Crowley couldn't take this, he didn't understand, he didn't-- "But surely you wondered why?" He felt almost frantic, why wasn't Zira leaving, why wasn't Zira _gone_.

  
"I knew there was an answer, and that was enough," said Azzy.

  
"But--" started Crowley-- "Well, it's just that I've always asked why about things," he said, a bit slowly. "I think...that's maybe why I Fell."

  
And Aziraphale's wings were white and his soul pure because for him, there being an answer was enough. He didn't need to know it.

  
But in this particular case, Crowley had the answer, and needed to share it. Needed the words to take their place in the world. "I was worried that I might lose you." And there they were, and Aziraphale didn't say a thing, but gestured him closer, and with gentle fingers lifted the sunglasses off of his face.

  
Crowley sat, something catching in his throat. "They're _gorgeous_ ," Aziraphale finally breathed. "Oh, I hope you won't hide your eyes any more."

  
He closed them for a second, though, feeling overwhelmed, before blinking them open again and staring back at Aziraphale's bright blue ones. "Yours are better," he said with a kind of twisted laugh in his voice, and Az just smiled, and leaned forward, and hugged him.

  
And he hugged back, and hoped he would never have to let go.

***

Crowley was walking past the mirror when he paused and looked into it, snake-like eyes flashing back at him, and allowed a small smile to creep across his face.


End file.
